Does anyone know of a blog link to a successful Masters swimmer's personal training progression?
What I am looking for is a swimmer who, like many Masters swimmers, was out of the sport for a while, then came back to it having to start over.
My curiosities are:
- How long from getting started did it take to become competitive again. Competitive meaning you aren't necessarily breaking records, but are winning your age group a reasonable amount of time and when not winning, still finishing with the pack.
- During the progression, what was the workout schedule? Was it every day evenings + morning workouts? Only evenings? Saturday practices?
- Did your diet change, are you now eating more or less, different composition?
- Were you slim already or did you have to lose weight as part of your training?
I am trying to figure out how hard to train. I have been back in the water off and on for about 9 months, mostly casually 1-3 coached evening workouts a week (about 3500m each workout). I know I need to ramp it up if I want to compete. I am less concerned about winning, more concerned about just making swim meets worth the time to register and drive, etc. If this means morning and evenings and diet changes, I will do them, but dont want to burn out either, so would be nice to see what successful Masters swimmers have done.
If you are such a swimmer, and want to either share here or have a email conversation, just send me a message.
Me:
- Swam school and club teams from age 6 through a year in college. (Best time was something like 20.63 in 50 free yards in high school.)
- After college, didnt really do any kind of workout program until now.
- Age 32 (33 in a few months)
- My focus is on sprint events 50's and 100's.
- Height: 6'1", Weight: 218 (have lost about 20 lbs since I have started swimming again, hoping to lose another 20, but not shedding them as quickly with the same workout/diet as the first 20)
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Former Member
Only you can tell if you think you've been slacking off too much in practice, but a 25:42 (SCM), as I'm sure you know, is already more than competitive. If you're finishing "dead last" dropping that kind of time, then there are a number of extremely talented swimmers in your aread.
I'm no longer really sure I understand your question... If you're asking "how long will it take for me to feel, in my own mind, that I'm well-trained for a meet" then I don't think anybody (but you) can answer that question. Just bear in mind that most people don't train more than a few days a week, and I'm sure most slack off to some extent.
Well the particular meet only had 2 other swimmers in it for Masters for all of my events and both finished ahead of me. I wasn't far behind (within a second or so), so it was okay. I was sort of assuming that bigger meets would have more swimmers and more faster swimmers.
I agree I have to answer the part about "feeling" when I was well trained myself. My goal in this thread was to see examples of successful master's swimmers and how they progressed torwards their goals. If I read about many swimmers doing X, then I would try to emulate X, if I saw a wide variation of what worked, then I would just try to adapt the various styles. Mostly I just didn't want my mantra to be something as simple as "workout any spare moment you have."
Only you can tell if you think you've been slacking off too much in practice, but a 25:42 (SCM), as I'm sure you know, is already more than competitive. If you're finishing "dead last" dropping that kind of time, then there are a number of extremely talented swimmers in your aread.
I'm no longer really sure I understand your question... If you're asking "how long will it take for me to feel, in my own mind, that I'm well-trained for a meet" then I don't think anybody (but you) can answer that question. Just bear in mind that most people don't train more than a few days a week, and I'm sure most slack off to some extent.
Well the particular meet only had 2 other swimmers in it for Masters for all of my events and both finished ahead of me. I wasn't far behind (within a second or so), so it was okay. I was sort of assuming that bigger meets would have more swimmers and more faster swimmers.
I agree I have to answer the part about "feeling" when I was well trained myself. My goal in this thread was to see examples of successful master's swimmers and how they progressed torwards their goals. If I read about many swimmers doing X, then I would try to emulate X, if I saw a wide variation of what worked, then I would just try to adapt the various styles. Mostly I just didn't want my mantra to be something as simple as "workout any spare moment you have."
